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The most well known group I was ever in was called the Saucers. We're talking
'77-'81. We and a group called the Jars were the only Punk styled bands in Berkeley for at least
a year. The Jars were fans of the 13th Floor Elevators and Pere Ubu. The Saucers dug the Clash and Ska . Both groups
sported Farfisa organs.The heart of the alternative scene was across the bay in San Francisco at the Mabuhay Gardens
on Broadway. The hardcore punks there begrudgingly accepted our presence at first. Berkeley was known mostly for Hippie-style
jam bands. The Natives were big. Psychotic Pineapple and The Whippets did
neo-60's garage. Blues bands were plentiful. We had more trouble with the Berkeley music establishment than
in S.F. They distrusted the whole punk scene-they saw it as a threat to their dominance-and they were right.
But this being Berkeley, the political sensibilities of groups like The Clash found a ready-made audience that craved
more. It was the golden era of college radio, and KALX Berkeley ruled the Bay Area punk airwaves and set the tone
for student stations nationwide. Between KALX in Berkeley, KUSF in S.F., and
a few South Bay colleges like KFJC in Los Altos Hills,, the ethers were brimming with the new sounds.
The whole phenom was reminiscent of the mid/ late 60's, when the Brits and hippies replaced Surf & Pop and free-form
FM took control of the industry itself. Soon even long reluctant Bill Graham began producing some shows in Berkeley. Graham
Parker, The Pretenders. B-52's. The Police. Someone had the nerve to book a huge 'Alternative' music festival at the
U.C. campus, featuringa slew of S.F. bands we did gigs with, but not any Berkeley groups. They had huge posters
all over town that read 'New Wave Hits Berkeley' and 'East Bay Punk Explosion'. But nobody was representing the East
Bay at all. To hell with that. So Dave the guitarist and I picketed the show. The nervous producers actually offered
us a spot to play, but we said we wanted our friends The Jars to play instead. They had a record out. The producers agreed,
but The Jars bowed out. We recorded our biggest hit, "Piggy's
Jukebox" on a 4-track in the drummer's living room and days later it was getting airplay. Now that was exciting!
The stations loved to play new stuff from unknowns. It was exactly the opposite of where radio is at these days, with "Alternative"
playlists. These stations had no playlists. The DJ was the person who decided what to play on their own show. Between
the bands, the numerous the hole-in-the-wall venues, the fashion of anti-fashion, and the stations, the music couldn't
help but push forward. Nationally the same thing was going on, so it was fun to be a part of. I played keys for the Saucers
and shared vocals with guitarist Dave Velasquez. Shelly Wolfe played bass, and Jake Smith was the drummer.. Craziest
gig we ever did? With Flipper. Some crazy person rushing the
stage spilled soda all over my keyboards! Talk about trying not to be pissed off. Another time at Barrington Hall with
the Jars,
some inebriated topless dancing woman jumped on stage and knocked the
keyboards over on a 45 degree angle. I kept playing on one knee until the security guys bundled her off. Barrington
Hall-that was Animal House for sure.
the BAY area: Meanwhile Back in the late 60's:
Finding oneself young and hungry on the streets of America presents a real problem sometimes. Playing my acoustic
guitar on the streets of San Francisco was a surefire way to stay fed. San Francisco was a giant tourist
magnet, and the sight of some wailing urchin with a hat out would always attract a few bucks. I realized that I would never
starve, whatever happened. From the sidewalks of Fisherman's Wharf and Montgomery Street it was a short leap to the infamous
coffeehouse circuit of late 60's S.F. and Berkeley. My favorite rathole was The Coffee Gallery on Grant Avenue
in North Beach. The open mike nights were great because everyone could pass the hat. You could make $20 which was like $60
today. That was the rowdiest crowd ever. A nutty mix of tourists, hippies, beatniks, bikers, sailors & soldiers on
leave, strippers, artists, bullshitters and crazy people. Pitchers of beer were dirt cheap, and the intoxicated weekend crowds
were so loud that any performer would have to really belt out the vocal to be heard above the din. Janis Joplin honed a lot
of her chops here. The house band was Loose Gravel, with some of the original Charlatans,
S.F's first Hippie band. If the mob didn't like you, you could get beaned with a glass, or at least heckled off stage. It
was like the Apollo Theatre sometimes, so you really had to develop a lot of confidence. But it was more than average fun
because of the wildness of the whole gritty scene. It was a last vestige of S..F's wild Barbary Coast. The
Holy City Zoo, The Family Pharmacy- it was an endless series of "Hootenanny" styled
dens of folk and blues where untold thousands of musicians and wanna-be's all had their moments of truth. Sometimes you could
play three or four open-mic's in one night. Here and there you'd actually be offered a real gig. The same scene
was thriving across the bay in Berkeley. There was a lot of leftover Beatnik/Folkie culture that had room for the new crop
of artists and fans. That's what was so ideal about the whole Bay Area scene. There was room for absolutely any kind
of non-conformist to do his thing among his peers. A veritable incubator of artistic activity. But the Holy Grail of cultural
change was brewing within it's own temples. The Fillmore Auditorium and the Avalon Ballroom
were giant Motherships, that once boarded, forever changed the nature of the passengers. They were the inevitable offspring
of the coffeehouse and the high school gymnasium, and at the same time a throwback to the glorious ballroom era of the thirties
and forties. Only it was Jimi Hendrix instead of Glenn Miller. But I digress. I just about lived in the Fillmore
Auditorium once I discovered it. It was only $3 to get in, plus promoter Bill Graham gave out free apples at the door.
So I was spoiled rotten in the live band department. I saw everyone from Janis to Jimi, the Kinks to Dr. Hook, Quicksilver
to Vanilla Fudge, B.B. to Albert King, and just about every band listed in the index of Ralph J. Gleason's
classic "The Jefferson Airplane & the San Francisco Sound". The years rolled on and the
venues changed; The Carousel Ballroom, Winterland; and the steady roster of the world's
best bands continued to galvanize the minds of the faithful. Especially mine. I lived for live music, and I was always the
first on line when the Beach Boys played S.F. So I had pretty much done everything you could do in the Haight-Ashbury.
It was the most fun neighborhood I had ever seen. A time or two I even hung out at the Dead's
house at 710 Ashbury. I was friends with Clementine Hall of the 13th Floor
Elevators, and got to know a lot of cool Texans from Austin. Had a good time in general
until the Haight Street scene became beseiged by smack and speed dealers and criminals and riot-equipped cops compliments
of the then Mayor, Joe Alioto (a democrat). Paranoia struck deep, and the sweet siren call of Berkeley brought
hordes of kids across the Bay to sunny Alameda County. But, alas, more war protests turned that idyllic sojourn
into a teargas- laden nightmare of martial law and the National Guard. Tanks on the streets of America! Who could have forseen
that? I wasn't for the war, but having been a Sea Scout for years back in school, I wasn't about to toss rocks
at strangers just because they were in uniform. I knew those Guardsmen were just as scared and confused as we were, but
anger over the war bred violent confrontations. What happened to all the fun in the sun? The California dream? Was it
all dying in front of our eyes? I was really looking for somewhere peaceful to live. The shrill Bay Area environment was
all getting to be a bit too much. It was right about then that an old girlfriend of mine from N.Y. called and said
I should come visit her in Madison, Wisconsin, where she was going to start college. Wiping the teargas from
my eyes, I bought a plane ticket and thus began my Midwest adventure . Next: Madison- The Berkeley of the Farmbelt
|
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THE SAUCERS
and other mad adventures in l.a.,bezerkeley, san francisco, mendocino, & humboldt.....
| NYC/Mendocino legends CAT MOTHER |
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| Singer/Keyboardist Bob Smith (center) R.I.P. |
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THE GOOD, THE BAD,
AND THE INSANE In general, being a musician has been a rewarding and satisfying experience.
But there have been a few shaky, dicey moments. Some turned out to be blessings in disguise and others were
just total nightmares.One of the craziest was in Madison, Wisconsin in 1969. I was mixing sound
for a Zep-like outfit called "Bliss", but I really wanted to play guitar in my own band . I met some guys
who said they had a gig at a big auditorium on the outskirts of town in a few weeks. They were going to open
for an outfit called "Cindy & the Soul Asylum".The night of the gig, the place exploded into
a full-fledged riot, with bloody fights and screaming kids and angry security guards. A crazed mass approached
the stage itself. We grabbed our instruments and girlfriends and rocketed out the back door as the mob engulfed us. All the
amps were kicked in and trashed, the drum kit flung across the room. It looked just like those old films of Rock and Roll
riots in England in the 50's, the venue totally beseiged with anarchy. Freaked out kids stampeded through the night
as we jumped into our cars and tried to navigate our way through the chaos. The riot was outdoors now, dozens of cops
showed up, but amazingly we made it home alive without running anyone over. People were screaming and banging on the
car windows all the way out.. There had been Martial law declared in Madison that same week because of
major anti -Vietnam War riots. There had been extreme violence, and the whole town was beyond jumpy. We laughed
about it later on, after the fear and adrenalin wore off. THE NUMBER ONE BAND IN AMERICA-MY BIG BREAK I had become friends with
a local Madison radio DJ. He thought enough of my music to purchase some studio time and gave me airplay too. I
remember picking up a girl hitchiking, and my song came on the radio. That was a Kodak moment. Anyway, my friend's sister
played keyboards and sang in a band called "Underground Sunshine". They were actually a rather inspired
bubblegum Pop outfit. Not really my bag. But one small thing did attract me to them. This funny little band
from the hills and dells of cow-pie strewn Wisconsin, these polyestered carnaby-street fashion victims who had never
smoked a joint HAD THE NUMBER ONE RECORD IN THE U.S.A. And just what possibly could that have
been? A cover of that recent chestnut
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"Birthday" by the Beatles.
You can look it up. So my big audition arrived, and I saw those faux- hippie clothes from some mall and layered Monkee
haircuts, and heard them sing what had to be the corniest Beatles song ever, and I said to my friend: "I just can't do
this man." And I profusely apologized to everyone and left. I just knew there was no way this was going to work out.
They were a one-hit wonder, and one of the most unlikely ever. The hot bands in Madison back then were The Mendelbaum
Blues Band (Whose great guitarist and leader, Chris Michie, recently passed on. He later backed
Van Morrison for years.). Oz was the badass rock outfit in town, along with early Metal slingers Bliss,
with guitarist Danny Delker. Madison's greatest moment was when the Doors came to play, and half
the town partied away at the Mayor's waterfront mansion after the show. The all night Bacchanal featured Jim Morrison,
who had a fine time. I spent a lot of time doing solo gigs at the Great Hall, The
Rathskellar, the Daisy Cafe, and digging Charlie Musselwhite at the
Nitty Gritty. And I again dodged tear gas from the National Guard.
MENDOCINO
AND THE ALBION NATION: THE LAST STAND.
Sometime in the early 70's I migrated up the Northern
Cali coast to the Mendocino area. Back then it was the land that time forgot. Some of the prettiest, mind-blowing
seaside scenery on Earth was selling for $500 an acre. It was a museum of turn-of-the-century Western life that hadn't modernized
much over the decades. The wood mills kept on chugging out arsenic and steam to process the redwood trees that the loggers
cleared. It had been going on for generations without change. The salmon fleet was still out braving the icy waves, making
tons of money and spending it in town. At the Caspar Inn roadhouse there was a bell on the wall with a pull-string
on it. When it rang that meant that some happy soul was buying drinks for the house. On balmy evenings during salmon season
that bell rang every ten minutes. For musicians and fans, the center of action was a beer and pizza parlor called the Uncommon
Good in the town of Mendocino. Half the buildings back then were falling apart or empty. It was like half ghost town,
it had been neglected so long. Being right on the shoreline increased the village's decay factor over the years, as salt and
spray ate into everything. So the 'UG', as it was affectionately known, was ground zero for fun. There was
a small elevated stage for musicians to play on in the evenings. Upstairs was a video arcade where pizza-hungry parents
could safely unload the offspring while they nursed a beer. Lenny Laks and Bobby Schneider, the two musicians who
owned it, were from New York and really knew their Pizza. They also knew how to nurture a music scene, and granted
stage time to amateur newcomers as well as the established acts that somehow wound up in this tiny coastal enclave, miles
from anywhere. Many world famous musicians lived at one time or the other within a few miles of town, including Judy
Mayhan, Gene Clark (Byrds), Gene Parsons (Byrds, Burrito Bros), Bonnie
Raitt, Bill Kreutzman (Grateful Dead), Johnny Barbata (Jefferson
Airplane/ Starship), Barry Melton (Country Joe & the Fish), Jimmy Hodder (Steely
Dan), Joel Scott Hill (Canned Heat), Rita Coolidge, Booker T. Jones,
Cat Mother and the All-Night Newsboys (whose singer Bob Smith had a zillion personal tales
of Jimi Hendrix, and the manager they shared, the notorious Michael Jeffery), folk/banjo
icon Billy Faier, and scores of troubadors not so well known. The venues were unbelievably plentiful
too. For such a tiny, remote area there were seemingly endless places to play and hear live music. Any night of
the week. The Cobweb Palace in Westport; the Anchor Inn, Eagles Hall,
Portugese Hall, and The Wharf in Fort Bragg; The Caspar Inn in Caspar; The
Pyewackett, Watertower Collective, Foghorn Tavern (where one night Bill
Kreutzman, Dan Healy, and Keith & Donna showed up on a whim and did 3 hours
of Dead tunes), Mendocino Hotel, Crown Hall, Toad Hall (where I once got
to hang out with Bo Diddley), The Seagull and the Uncommon Good in Mendocino; the
Albion and Comptche and Elk Community Centers & Firehouses,
The Albion River Inn and the Bar at Chicken Point and the Elk Cafe and
the OK Cafe and the Boathouse in Point Arena. And endless outdoor
concerts, some right on the ocean, at B'nai Boo Ranch on Big River or inland on the river at the Woodlands.
The biggest blowout was the annual Albion People's Fair, a three-day festival with live music and camping. Hundreds
of hippies and a few dozen bikers would take over the small fishing village of Albion for a week and buy
up all the beer within miles. It was held on a beautiful Azalea farm, surrounded by Redwoods and two lakes. . I can't even
remember the groups, there were so many. Dirty Legs, Colors, Skyhook, New
Orleans Jazz Band w/Marguerite Baker & Busbee, Cat Mother and all their off-shoots (Greenwood
Sidemen), Helios, Billy(Kreutzman) & The Bullets, Live Bait, Pennebaker
Blues Band, Crazy Wolf & Osha, Hansen & Raitt
(Bonnie's brother David), Billy Shay, Antonia Lamb, Lenny Laks, Mendocino
Shuffle (w/Margie Crowningshield & Tom Quinn), Philo Hayward & The Shuffle Band, Kenny
& Marlene Cahn, Frannie Leopold, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Don Bell, Stevie Gurr, L.A. Sound legend
Dan Firpo, The Two Louies (Callas & Demetri), John Chamberlin, Peter
Oliva, Mark Levine Revue, Michael Ward, Meridian Green, Mendocino
All-Stars, Brown Bros, Charlie Remer, Rick Blaufeld, Walt
McKeown(Colonel Wingnuts), Dinus, Phil Brock, Slim Silver & the Side-effects and the Caspar
Flats Jugband. (and dozens of others who escaped Babylon and headed North for the Pygmy Forest.) For at
least ten years it was the best music and living scene you could possibly ask for. Rentals were cheap and plentiful
if you didn't mind cutting firewood to stay warm. Rainforest living was affordable, cozy and peaceful back then, before
the mega-logging corporations declared war, pot-seeking choppers destroyed the peace, and wanna-be gentry
looking for an easy life tried to turn it into something else entirely. But that's another (ongoing) chapter. But
for a little while, Mendocino and it's magical environs hosted one of the best, creative music scenes anywhere
on this planet. It only had one FM station, KMFB. And it was free-form radio, so local musicians got
their tapes and records played regularly, which helped fill the venues. So all the ingredients for a healthy, vital,
music scene were in play. And what could be more inspiring for artists than to live right on the cusp of the forest and the
wild Northern ocean? What a stunning spell it wove on the weary refugees that were beginning to call it home. next:
The Colors Band-Are You On the Bus?- Bill Graham
calls- The Albion Community Center was located within an old, large sea-weathered
& salt-etched schoolhouse (1880) that overlooked the Pacific Ocean in the tiny fishing village of Albion.
The Albion River flowed just below, meandering through the ancient, wild redwood forests of the Mendocino
coast. The new rural homesteaders of Albion had created an amazing seaside extension of their small hand-built cabins
scattered among the tiny pines further on up the ridges. At the community center you could get lunch or dinner for $1
every single day. A different family from the community would cook each day, so there was a lot of variety. The schoolhouse
also featured a day-care center, a library with 1000's of books and 100's of LP's, a full kitchen, and a big stage (with lights)
in a room large enough to hold dances in. It had a big wood stove too. You could sit on the schoolhouse steps and see the
ocean horizon five miles out. We had weekly concerts with all the local bands. It was only $1 to get in. You could bring your
own beer, and the center made some money selling munchies. The groups kept the admission. These concerts went on peacefully
for years without any cops or ambulances ever being called . Inevitably a gaggle of local Albion musicians began getting
together in one of the recreation rooms for jams. It all started with a guy named Chris Tay, a true
keyboard wizard. He set his electric piano up and before long there was a full-blown band emerging from the mix. The bassist
was Jim Noyes (originally from Berkeley), Chris on Keys, local Albionites Mark Gauche on
guitar, Peter White on drums, & horn/flute players extraordinaire Alan Toffer (N.Y.)
and Jerry 'Coco' Cofrancesco (Conn.), both extremely well-versed in East Coast jazz & R&B stylings.
Yours truly wound up being the full-time soundman. The sound of Colors was in the neighborhood of Steely
Dan, and it was extremely danceable. This was a sure-fire combination for the mid-70's and before long the group
was ready for their first gig outside of the community center. This happened to be at the aforementioned 'Uncommon
Good' , which was closing it's doors due to an insane rental increase. So this was going to be the final night,
and the whole town showed up. They were sure surprised to hear the music of Colors blasting all over town. The UG never had
bands, just folkies. So this was a special occasion on every level. Colors just blew everybody away. No one had ever heard
anything quite like it before. It rocked the house, but jazz freaks could groove on it too. And the vocal harmonies weaving
in and out were beyond outstanding. Overnight Colors became the most legendary band that Mendocino ever produced. Sometimes
it only takes one gig. Before long the band was gigging up and down the Northern California coast in a couple of retrofitted
schoolbuses. One for the equipment and sleeping, and the other for the band and the twenty or thirty friends, fans,
relatives, kids, dogs and God knows who else that might want to go to the show too. It was a three-ring circus. From Arcata
in Humboldt down to Marin County was our turf, and Colors played every bar, saloon, and roadhouse that would have them. They
became such a regional phenomenon that the county-wide newspaper The Mendocino Grapevine featured a huge
photo of them on the front page, complete with a lengthy article hailing the hometown heroes. We once got a gig in Forest
Knolls, down in Marin County. That's the town Jerry Garcia died in when he tried to clean up. The
Forest Knolls Lodge was one of the most infamous bars ever. It was a small roadhouse with only one entrance. There
was no back door exit and the bathroom windows were barred. It had ancient bullet holes in the walls. All sorts
of characters hung out there over the decades, including Hell's Angels and Marin Rock Stars. But this was modern Marin County,
very laid back and mellow. Janis Joplin used to hang here a lot. Anyway, the band bus pulls up to the club for the first
time ever, and we see four or five radically chopped Harleys parked outside. "Those are Hell's Angels bikes" I calmly
remark as we park. "Nah, those aren't Hell's Angels" says our drummer hopefully. "Yes they are" I say. "I lived in the Haight
long enough to know". We walk in and the place is packed with Angels wearing their club jackets, or 'colors'. We stroll through,
lugging speaker cabinets stencilled with the word 'COLORS' past Hell's Angels wearing theirs. Then I casually discover
that there hasn't been a live band in this place in five years! We're the first ones brave (or dumb) enough to give it a whirl.
Coco was always getting us odd gigs, but this was something else. As I set up the soundboard this huge Viking comes up
and says: "Is this band any good?" I looked him in the eye and said "They're f*****g great Dude". They were great that
night. The whole place was rocking out like crazy, dancing bikers and cowgirls whooping and hollering it up. Everyone loved
the band and didn't want it to end. As I mixed the sound this incredibly foxy woman wearing a red dress keeps dancing up to
me, getting sorta friendly.She was just a little drunk and a bit flirty, nothing rude, but I was getting nervous. She HAD
to be somebody's old lady. She was TOO good looking. Just as I'm trying to figure out how to defuse this potentially
embarrassing (or worse) situation, an amazing thing happened. Up walks a grinning Ramrod, road
manager for the Grateful Dead. The band was playing a sort of Spaghetti Western tune called 'Outlaw'
at the moment. Ramrod says to me: "Can you turn up the vocals a taste?" I say sure bro. Then I ask him "This chick? Does
she have an old man?" He turns his head towards the pool tables where two huge Angels are shooting 8-Ball. "Yeah", he
says and nods in the direction of the biggest one. "Well I don't want to get killed", I mutter. He says: "Don't worry.
We're not going to let anything happen to you boys." At the break I saw her boyfriend take her outside for a little talk.
Really, no one got physical or anything, and they came right back in and everything was cool. An odd Rock n' Roll moment
indeed. After the show some of us went down to Berkeley to visit some friends. I borrowed their
phone and made a call to promoter/record producer Matthew Katz, who was doing a lot of booking for Bill
Graham Productions at the time. I wanted to get Colors a gig in Marin at this ballroom/concert hall that kept changing
owners, but drew crowds. It was called Pepperland. Anyway he asks if we're the band that played
the Forest Knolls Lodge the night before. He'd heard all about the gig through the grapevine. "I hear you guys are really
good, and I want to book you at Winterland. Can you come to Marin and do agig at Pepperland
as a showcase?" I was really excited. Sometimes it only takes one gig, and Forest Knolls appears to have been the magic
one. But when I told the rest of the band about it they were flattered but weren't really interested. This was way out
of their league. They preferred their Mendocino lifestyles as opposed to becoming just another group of airport
rats on the way to another strange city and hotel. These guys didn't survive their 60's past by living on the road
as a lifestyle. They didn't want to be bothered with success. It was a lot more fun being young and roaming around the Northern
California Coast, making friends you could actually see again. They knew a Winterland gig might be the end of all
that. It could easily lead to major responsibility and too much time away from our beloved North Coast . So they
stayed in Albion, and drew large crowds for many more years. (there were some new members over the years,
including Louie Callas and Spotted Pony)
| COLORS- At home on the Mendocino Coast |
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| (l to r)White, Toffer, Gauche', Tay, Cofrancesco, Noyes. Nick Wilson pic |
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